High school sports. Man do I miss playing. For those of you who were athletes in high school for any amount of time I’m sure you can relate. Now let’s be clear here, I don’t really miss high school as a whole, just the “being an athlete” part. As a 21 year old college kid whose athletic abilities have gone by the wayside, I yearn to go back and play just one more high school football or baseball game and it is a thought I have every single day. The feeling of running out of the locker room to play a football game under the lights on a Friday night with all of your classmates in the stands is one that I wish I could experience again. Sometimes we even got to be dismissed from school early because of a game, that was always a treat. All of the best memories I have from my time in high school came from sports. Believe it or not I even miss going to practice, as bad as I thought it was at the time. I wish that having to go to a two hour practice every day could be my biggest worry again. One of the best parts of being on a sports team in high school was the camaraderie. I played baseball and football with the same kids for more than ten years, and those were some of my best friends that I’ll have for a lifetime.
In high school lots of people outside of the team actually care and come out to watch and support the teams, which I always thought was nice. As a club athlete in college I can tell you that outside of the guys on the team and everyone’s parents, there usually isn’t anyone else there to watch because not a whole lot of people care. In high school the stands were always packed with other high schoolers, parents, teachers, etc. While I was not a member of the basketball team, I loved being a part of our raucous student fan section called "The Bleacher Creatures." Even just regular townspeople who had no kids on the team and no real stake in the team would come out to watch. The support was always cool to see as a high school athlete. Now when I play in a club baseball game here at college we might be lucky to have ten or fifteen people watching, so the support from the community is something I definitely miss. Another thing that I really miss is just being a functioning athlete in general. Since my high school days I have certainly fallen out of the category of “in-shape” or “athletic,” that’s for sure. But now to make myself feel better I go to the gym about once every two weeks (maybe), and fill the void from high school sports with college intramural and club sports. While it’s not as great as it was in high school, it gets the job done.
I wish I could go back and do it all again, but I'll have to move on.
